The Method of Holiness and the Method of Hedonism
Holiness and happiness, purity and pleasure, benevolence and blessedness, advantage and vivaciousness, faithfulness and achievement, character and contentment: what do these seemingly contradictory ideas have in widespread? What do these concepts—typically pitted in opposition to one another as mutually unique—must do with each other? Is that this some sort of paradox?
Consider it or not, the concept the ethical life is the great life dominates historical considering. Holiness and happiness, specifically, are woven collectively in classical Christian thought. Augustine acknowledged that the pursuit of happiness reaches its finish in God, and Aquinas emphasised the happiness of the saints in his Summa Theologica. However the connection between holiness and happiness might be most clear within the theology of John Wesley—the founder, although maybe unwittingly, of Methodism.
I went to a seminary that was closely entrenched within the Anglican, Methodist, and Wesleyan traditions. For higher or worse, I discovered loads concerning the life, ministry, and teachings of John Wesley whereas I used to be there. Although I don’t see eye-to-eye with Wesley on every part, there are some Wesleyan rules that I’ll take with me wherever I am going, and considered one of these is the concept holiness is the best way to happiness.
This classical perspective is sort of overseas to our fashionable sensibilities. Within the up to date panorama, most of us have developed a detrimental view of conventional morals, classical virtues, and non secular teachings on “proper and incorrect.” We are inclined to assume that such issues oppose private creativity and curb self-expression, robbing us of delight, happiness, and life. In distinction to the Wesleyan path, many people are inclined to take the opposing path, which will be summed up right here as the best way of hedonism—the best way of licentiousness, instantaneous gratification, private indulgence, and bodily pleasure.
Isaac Brock: Good Information for Folks Who Love Dangerous Information
This well-traveled path is portrayed reasonably positively in a lot of our present artwork and media. The music and prose of the enduring indie rock band Modest Mouse serves as a very good instance. Modest Mouse has been round because the early ‘90s. They began writing and taking part in music through the heyday of the grunge period. Hailing from the nice state of Washington and rising up within the shadows of Seattle, they didn’t earn the sort of consideration and acclaim that neighboring bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam had earned.
Modest Mouse is taken into account to be one of many first indie bands of the fashionable period. Often called true “street warriors,” they didn’t achieve a ton of recognition till 2004, the yr they launched their most accessible album to this point: the critically-acclaimed Good Information for Folks Who Love Dangerous Information. After taking part in exhibits in small golf equipment and dive bars throughout the nation for greater than a decade, Modest Mouse had lastly made it.
Their lead singer and first songwriter is Isaac Brock, an open and self-designated atheist. He’s written a number of songs which can be consultant of an atheistic perspective. A few of these songs operate as specific critiques of religion and faith. As an illustration, on a monitor entitled “Bukowski,” Brock refers to God as an “Indian giver,” a “management freak,” and even—in a roundabout approach—an “a**gap.”
Within the tune “Ocean Breathes Salty,” which was one of many hit singles off of Good Information for Folks Who Love Dangerous Information, Brock expresses the prevailing hedonistic sentiments of the day, sentiments which can be attribute of a youthful—and perhaps even juvenile—mindset. On the monitor, Brock sings:
I hope heaven and hell are actually there,
However I wouldn’t maintain my breath.
You wasted life, why wouldn’t you waste dying?
You wasted life, why wouldn’t you waste dying?
On the finish of the tune, Brock rewords these remaining strains, proclaiming: “You wasted life, why wouldn’t you waste the afterlife?”
Brock is actually saying what many in our tradition would say: that the non secular life is a wasted life. The consensus at this time, no less than amongst younger folks, appears to be that to stay in line with classical conceptions of piety, of conventional morals and non secular values, is to throw one’s life away.
As they are saying, “You solely stay as soon as!” “We wish to have enjoyable!” “We wish to get pleasure from this fleeting life as a lot as we are able to earlier than we die.” “What a waste of a life—to observe the principles, to make sacrifices for a God that won’t even exist, to pursue advantage, to be disciplined, to keep away from extra and abstain from sure pleasures and indulgences, to take the troublesome path, the street much less traveled.”
In life, if I’m introduced with two different paths—one straightforward and one troublesome—why wouldn’t I select the straightforward one? That’s a very good query! Possibly the explanation why we shouldn’t select the straightforward path is as a result of it received’t truly take us the place we wish to go. Possibly the straightforward path is just not the trail to happiness. Possibly it’s true that nothing good, rewarding, and really worthwhile, is straightforward.
Is the Spiritual Life Actually a Wasted Life?
Based mostly on private expertise, I’d push again reasonably onerous on the notion that the ethical life or the non secular life is a wasted life. I imagine the precise reverse to be true, primarily based on first-hand expertise. I believe it’s necessary to problem a few of these societal assumptions. It’s significantly necessary if we genuinely care about folks.
I imagine that one could make a really sturdy argument—primarily based primarily on shared human expertise—that, opposite to fashionable perception, it’s truly the impious life that may be a wasted life. I believe we misinform ourselves; we misinform different folks. The world round us lies to us—and all of us are consuming it up! I’ve eaten it up! I’m nonetheless consuming it up! It’s such a human factor to do; it’s pure. It’s so easy and straightforward, but it surely’s additionally so flimsy and hole.
When folks say {that a} non secular life or an ethical life is a wasted life, they typically have three historically prohibited behaviors in thoughts. Isaac Brock nearly actually had these three issues in thoughts when he wrote the lyrics to “Ocean Breathes Salty”—heavy drug use, extreme alcohol use, and informal intercourse.
However do these items actually make us happier and more healthy? Do they actually make us extra full? Are they good for {our relationships}, friendships, and marriages? Do they make us really feel higher about ourselves and result in private achievement? Do they make us really feel cherished and at peace?
Quite the opposite, don’t these items drain us (and others) of emotional, bodily, psychological, and religious well-being? Don’t these very issues damage and hamper us greater than they assist us? By and huge, doesn’t the presence of such habits trigger extra guilt and disgrace, extra despair and despair, extra numbness and vacancy, extra insecurity and stress, extra brokenness and bondage, extra angst and weak point, extra laziness and impotence, than their absence does?
In the long term and for essentially the most half, do these behaviors not add to our discontentment reasonably than subtract from our discontentment? Don’t folks usually apply these habits for the very objective of masking and avoiding their deep-seated points—points which can be typically straight tied to non-public ache and trauma—as an alternative of coping with them, which might seemingly end in a greater life? We normally don’t wish to take into consideration these items, partly as a result of it doesn’t appear to be very… a lot… enjoyable….
The Method of Happiness
I can’t reply these questions for different folks. I can’t reply them for you, however just for myself—and I believe I do know what the reply is… I believe I’ve come to know what the reply is, though typically I nonetheless don’t wish to imagine it—though typically, like a baby, I plug my ears, shake my head, and scream on the high of my lungs in an effort to keep away from the reality, that inconvenient reality that part of me—a really actual a part of me—doesn’t wish to be true. “Evil… me, oh yeah, I do know…” Brock sings in “Bukowski”—maybe essentially the most self-aware factor that he sings all through your entire tune, perhaps much more trustworthy than the title of the ultimate monitor on the album: “The Good Occasions Are Killing Me.” In the event that they’re killing you, then are they actually good?
Thomas Oden, a theologian within the Methodist custom, wrote an 859-page systematic theology known as Basic Christianity. On the finish of his part on the “Character of God,” he talks concerning the doctrine of divine happiness, a dogma that we merely don’t hear sufficient about within the church at this time—if we hear about it in any respect. God is eternally glad; He’s eternally fulfilled and joyful. This God of happiness, this God of felicity and blessedness, needs us to be like him—not primarily for his personal sake, however for our sake! He needs us to be glad. He needs us to share in his blessedness. He needs us to expertise “life and life abundantly.”
However this God of everlasting happiness can also be the God of holiness and righteousness. The God of eternal pleasure is the God of “Holy Love.” The holiness of God is an integral a part of the happiness of God. The righteousness of God straight contributes to the joyfulness of God. In and thru God, we see that the holy life is the glad life, and vice versa.
That is what John Wesley helped convey to my consideration as a younger seminary pupil, one thing that I now know to be true by means of expertise. Like most individuals, I’ve had my seasons of immorality—unholy seasons. However, once I look again on these seasons, I can’t assist however assume that they had been all a waste! What did I achieve? Greater than that, what did I lose? These had been wasted seasons, wasted potential, wasted life. My waywardness robbed me of the which means, the sweetness, the enjoyment, the peace, and the achievement of the great life. It prevented me from experiencing the blessedness of God. Wesley was proper: we had been made for happiness, and happiness can solely be present in our joyful Creator—the God of everlasting happiness, the God of Holy Love.
Supply hyperlink